In this episode of AskHistorians Aloud, we talk about
conscription in the Ancient Greek world. Iphikrates answers "I'm a
farmer in 500 BC in a typical Greek city-state. How often will I
get called to mobilize for a battle?"

Update: Someone has pointed out that a bit of the outro got
recorded over the answer! Terribly sorry about that. Here is the
missing text:

How much of the time was wartime is an open question. But even
during the Peloponnesian War, there were several uneventful years,
in which Sparta did not call out the levy of the Peloponnesian
League and Athens had only men from the Lists in various
expeditionary forces. In such times you, as a regular farmer, might
escape military duty altogether. And if your city-state wasn't a
member of the League or a subject of the Athenian Empire, you might
be fighting your own petty wars, but otherwise you'd be left mostly
alone.

It is anyone's guess how often you would actually be involved in
a battle. Given all the factors I've mentioned, regardless of your
city-state's foreign policy, I am of the opinion that the answer is
probably closer to "once or twice in a lifetime" than "every year".
However, given the lack of comprehensive source coverage, and the
fact that historical accounts sometimes casually mention several
battles in the course of a single campaign, my guess may well be
wildly off the mark.

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The AskHistorians Podcast features members of Reddit's AskHistorians community, as well as published academics, and experts for long-form 60-90 minute in-depth conversations about a topic of their research. Additionally, each podcast episode is accompanied by a thread in AskHistorians where the expert swings by to answer followup questions. Find us answering questions at www.reddit.com/r/askhistorians or on patreon at www.patreon.com/askhistorians